Wins For Civil Rights

The civil rights laws need to be amended or reformed. Aside from the usual arrest warrants that a judge must approve, law enforcement needs an additional and separate raid warrant, to justify to a judge why a no-knock raid rather than a plain ordinary street arrest is justified. The raid warrant should have the names of law enforcement officers that will both participate in the raid and guarantee the accuracy of the information. If they knock back the wrong house, then every cop on the raid warrant is instantly fired, and loses his or her accumulated pension and benefits.

PART II

A Federal trial level judge based in Chicago has invalidated part of the city’s post-MacDonald “loosened” firearms laws as unconstitutionally vague. The issue revolves around Chicago’s “unlawful use of a weapon” statues not being clearly defined. And of course, as is the Chicago Way, anyone who violates this law (and it could be anyone), loses his or her post-MacDonald “rights” in the city.

I’ve been saying all along that the Heller and MacDonald decisions were correct, but underpowered. The lawyers for Messrs. Heller and MacDonald should have asked for the cities of Washington, D.C., Chicago and eventually others to be put under a consent decree. That would mean that those cities would have to get the approval of a Federal judge before changing any firearm laws and ordinances, to prevent them from dicking around.